Recently, in the subway, I could not help but hear a part of a conversation between two young women sitting next to me. As soon as I got down, thinking back to their words, and in particular to the situation told by one of them, I said to myself: “In the end, she just has to convince herself.”

The youngest was complaining to the friend of a negative evaluation received in the office. She seemed very disheartened and did not feel at all acknowledged for her efforts at work to be timely and precise, unlike other colleagues of her.

Without going into the merit of the evaluation received, the feeling of disappointment and anger expressed by this woman accompanies many other people who receive similar assessments in the office (and not only). Accepting positive evaluations of our professional performance is easy and exciting while receiving criticisms or ideas of improvement from others, it is not that easy. Often we are not prepared and we are overwhelmed with what we have been told by losing sight of the facts. It may happen that we focus only on what is not good, leaving out the simplicity of the choices that lead to the solution.

Let us, however, take the time to think calmly and impartially to the criticisms received and to establish personal, concrete and achievable improvement goals.

It is true that there are many aspects of our lives that we can not control but, on the other hand, we are the ones responsible for our actions. The more we work to improve ourselves, the more depends on us.

Let’s start by ourselves. In situations like these, it is a luxury not to have to convince anyone other than ourselves, which is much easier task than convincing others around us to change.

Surprisingly I thought about football, and more precisely about what Mr Mihajlovic said in a recent press conference that, considering my lack of interest in this sport, I would not have seen except for my husband’s passion for Torino FC: “The attitude that we have had does not depend on the opponent, it does not depend on the opponent if we play as a team, and it does not depend on the opponent if we chase every ball and it does not depend on the opponent if we sacrifice for the team, and it does not depend on the opponent if the team remains focused throughout the game, as it does not depend on the opponent if the team always plays to win without being satisfied”.

Regardless of the others and the final result, convincing ourselves means choosing to shift attention from the problem to the solutions. The solution is often in our freedom of choice. Let’s train us to realize it.